Download PDF - Stillness Speaks

state manifests as awareness and acts as a perceptive or knowledge-gatheringfunction in the form of the first five organs. In its dynamic state, it functionsas the active or karmic organs - the last five. Another active function of thelife force is apana - the capacity of the organism to reject unwanted elementsfrom the body (wastes, toxins, etc.). Thirdly, prana functions as samana inthe digestive system transforming food into energy which is equitablydistributed (vyana) according to the need of each part. If walking, more goesto the legs, if cutting wood, more goes to the arms. The prana in the form ofudana is the power to eject the soul from the body, a kind of reincarnationaltime clock counting down to the moment of death.The subtle body is the instrument of perception. The points on thephysical body where sense perceptions seem to occur are not actually thesense organs. For example, the eyes are only "places of light" 34 or windowsthrough which the power of vision, a subtle body component, beams forth.Perception is only possible when the mind is behind the sense organ. Theeyes may report visual stimuli and the organ of sight illumine them, but theyhave no meaning if the mind is occupied elsewhere - daydreaming,meditating, or thinking. Common experience shows that whencommunicating to someone lost in thought or otherwise preoccupied thecommunication does not register.The Self, the conscious being, perceives through the senses, mind, andintellect. In its passive function the mind picks up on feelings and emotionsvibrating in the world around and passes them on to the Self. In its activefunction, it expresses the same. The intellect is the most sophisticated of thesubtle body components, capable of diverse functions - thinking,discriminating, willing, reasoning, symbolizing, imagining, intuiting,meditating, and so on. The instrument through which the Self perceives theidea world, intellect functions as the ego idea which, motivated by an endlessstream of fear and desire, generates all our actions.The subtle body is the field of practice. The Self is immutable sonothing can be done to change it. Physical work only marginally affects thesubtle body. Even the Unconscious can only be altered in the waking statethrough subtle body, work. Spiritual practice is designed to purify the subtlebody, transforming it into an instrument capable of receiving Self-Knowledge."Ignorance, indescribable and beginingless,is the Causal Body. Know for certain34 Golaya. “Go” is Sanskrit for light, “laya” for place.28